


Behind The Scenes of Capture The Flag

by Cameleaf



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Percy Jackson Fusion, Bakugou Katsuki is Bad at Feelings, Camp Half-Blood (Percy Jackson), Demigods, Happy Ending, M/M, Midoriya Izuku is Bad at Feelings, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Midoriya Izuku, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining Bakugou Katsuki, Pining Midoriya Izuku, Rick Riordan Demigod Universe | Riordanverse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:07:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23908972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cameleaf/pseuds/Cameleaf
Summary: Being descendants of different war deities, Katsuki and Izuku were always on opposite teams during the regular Friday games. Well, except for special occasions, they compete with each other nearly all the time. They seemed to be good friends when they were younger… Heck, they even lived in the same neighborhood before they were sent to camp.Another game of capture the flag is coming up, though things seemed to start going on a weird turn, and everything started to go towards an unexpected direction that Izuku would’ve never thought of.
Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Midoriya Izuku
Comments: 10
Kudos: 45





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Basically MHA characters in PJO AU
> 
> -Set in many years later after the main CHB series. I’ll explain things to the extent that people without previous knowledge of the PJO/CHB series will understand.
> 
> -MHA characters as Japanese descents living in America.
> 
> -Most main canon characters in both MHA & PJO may only be mentioned/may not even appear due to plot issues. One big reason is I'm not sure how to decide other characters' godly parents.
> 
> -Only Phillips is OC, others are not.

Dusk was rolling in as Izuku stood in front of his cabin. The breeze brought the scent of fresh nature, with a hint of the salty sea and the sweetness of the strawberry fields that lay not far away from the cabin grounds. Izuku gazed at the cabin that stood on the other side of the central green. There were 24 cabins in total that formed a rectangular Ω at the cabin grounds: two at the very end, five each on two sides, and 12 formed the feet of the shape of which each foot stood six cabins. Each cabin has a large number above the door, among which cabins with odd numbers were on the left and the ones with even numbers were on the right. Izuku was at cabin six, and he was gazing at cabin five, which was straight across from his cabin.

It was not yet curfew, so most cabins still had their lights on. Through the windows of cabin five, Izuku spotted the familiar blonde that was yelling at others in the cabin. He could even hear the voices from where he was standing, but he could barely decipher the words. He was probably yelling at the others to get their butts into their beds, Izuku thought.

The blonde had apparently felt the piercing gaze as he whipped his head towards the window that Izuku was gazing through. Izuku quickly pulled his gaze away, pretending that he had been looking at something else, but his effort was to no avail as he could clearly see the scowled face of the blonde glaring back at him while Izuku slowly turned his gaze back. It wasn’t the first time that Izuku was caught gazing at the teen, and the litigant didn’t seem to care too much for being gazed at. He was probably already used to the gaze.

Their eyes met. It felt like hours to Izuku, but it only took three seconds before both of them pulled away simultaneously from the eye contact, not knowing the other had looked away as well.

Izuku could feel that faint jumpy feeling rising to his chest again—it happened every time when their eyes met—as he set his feet back to his cabin. The yelling blonde at cabin five was Katsuki Bakugou, and they had been knowing each other for years.

In general, as Izuku had analyzed by himself, there could be a whole lot of different meanings behind the phrase “knowing each other for years.” They could be acquaintances that had known each other’s existence for years, or unfamiliar friends that had known some years of information about each other, or really close friends for years that had actually known nearly all details of each other. Given answers from above, if the question of what the relationship was between Katsuki and Izuku was asked, it would be quite difficult to answer, since they were quite… none of the above. 

Sure, they had known almost years of every single detail of information about each other, but they were like unfamiliar friends under circumstances that made them forced to talk to each other, and were even like acquaintances that completely ignored each other’s existence while no interactions were required.

Izuku didn’t know exactly when and how their relationship ended up that weird.

\---

Living in the same neighborhood, Izuku and Katsuki ended up being childhood friends ever since they met at kindergarten, and they even became close family friends for having the same nationality (It is very common for Asians to form their own cliques). They weren’t amazed by the fact that they went to same schools up until high school since they lived in the same area, but always being in the same classes and even going to the same summer camp during long breaks were surprising enough.

They both arrived Camp Half-Blood at around age seven, being escorted together.

It was actually an accident. The protector was sent to escort Katsuki to camp, but when the protector arrived at the Bakugous’ resident, he found Katsuki being with another child who also had the scent of a half-blood.

This whole thing started at the last day of the school year, and Mrs. Bakugou, Mitsuki, was asked if she could pick up the other child. Inko, Izuku’s mother, couldn’t go pick her son up because she had to run an errand. Mitsuki generously accepted her request, as it wasn’t the first time that the families had done each other such simple favors.

Mitsuki took her keys and headed off to the school, thinking about upcoming family trips and arrangements they’d made with the Midoriyas on her way. When she parked at the school’s parking lot, she was a bit anxious to see a couple of cyclopes walking by, but she didn’t think too much, hoping that her son’s scent wasn’t strong enough to attract these monsters. 

The school bell rang and students started to pile out of the school. She got off the car, trying to look for Katsuki and Izuku amongst the crowd. She quickly greeted the kids when she saw them running towards her, and told them that Izuku would be tagging along since Inko was busy. Katsuki didn’t seem too enthusiastic about the news, but there’s nothing else he could do to change the situation.

Right after she picked them up, Mitsuki casually asked if anything happened before she had arrived. Before Katsuki could answer, Izuku straight up told her that some weird guy tried to grab them when they left the school building. Mitsuki was startled when Izuku used the word “us,” but she was interrupted by her son before she could ask anything.

“Didn’t I say not to tell my mom about this? What are you thinking, stupid Deku!”

Mitsuki immediately got flared up by Katski’s reaction and forgot what she was about to ask. “Damn it, Katsuki! Watch your mouth!” 

Izuku wasn’t too scared of Katsuki as long as Mitsuki was around, since the parent would always try her best to “educate” her son.

“But Kacchan, I… I think it’s important,” Izuku said in a small voice. “Didn’t your mom say that you should tell her everything strange at school?” He quickly turned back to Mitsuki. “There’s another weird thing the day before yesterday—”

“I said shut up! Deku!”

“I SAID WATCH YOUR MOUTH! KATSUKI!!”

Izuku wasn’t discouraged by Katsuki’s remarks. Instead, he continued to describe how there was a weird guest touring around the school with a couple of teachers, and how the guest kept a serious stare at Katsuki while the latter headed off to the restroom during class.

“That guy didn’t even follow me, so it’s not that important!”

“But-but it’s scary. I saw his eyes glowing…”

“You’re hallucinating,” Katsuki huffed. “That’s all!”

“I SAID CUT IT! KATSUKI!”

If her hands weren’t on the steering wheel, Mitsuki would’ve given Katsuki a nice smack on his spiky head.

Mitsuki became very concerned about what Izuku told her. Although summer vacation had already started, it would still be dangerous for the kid being unprotected even though they didn’t need to go to school. Mitsuki knew that the cyclopes she saw earlier might trace the scent of her son, and under this rate, he’ll be attacked sooner or later. Knowing what to do would be the best move, she called Camp Half-Blood.

The parent didn’t know Izuku was a demigod as well, so she didn’t know that Izuku and Katsuki being close resulted in having a stronger scent than a regular demigod, thus made it earlier for Katsuki to be noticed by monsters.

After an hour of waiting, a satyr arrived. Satyrs tend to be protectors of the demigods—also called half-bloods—as satyrs usually were sent to pick up demigods and escort them to Camp Half-Blood, where magical boundaries were at work to protect whoever is within the vicinity. Phillips the satyr was greeted by Mitsuki as he entered the front door. He looked around the house and saw two kids: The blonde kid must’ve been her son, and the kid with dark hair obviously didn’t fit into the family picture.

Apparently the satyr wasn’t expecting another demigod. Phillips was extremely confused: He was summoned to escort a half-blood, whose parent had called camp for help. He even double checked the information he received from camp, and it said one half-blood, not two, so who’s the other kid? The parent didn’t seem like she knew the other kid was a demigod as well. He asked the parent who the other kid was, and Mitsuki replied that the kid was a family friend, and just a regular mortal.

Nevertheless, a satyr’s job was to protect half-bloods, no matter how many of them there are, so Phillips decided to bring both of them back to camp. He first called back to camp, stating that he had found and would return with demigods. The satyr then informed Mitsuki about the other kid being a half-blood as well, and told her about his decision on taking that kid along. Mitsuki was shocked by the news. She had no idea that Izuku was also a half-blood, as she only knew that her child was. She’d never talked about these Greek mythical stuffs with anyone else since she had never expected another half-blood living in the same neighborhood. Without hesitation, Mitsuki agreed to let the satyr take both of them away, as she knew the dangers of leaving a young half-blood alone. She said she’ll inform the parent of the other kid later on.

“Izuku, you’ll go with Katsuki,” Mitsuki told Izuku as she packed an extra pack for Izuku. “I’ll tell your mother about this later on. Stay close to Katsuki and Phillips, okay? He’ll explain everything.” 

Gladly, it wasn’t the last time they see the woman, but it was kind of the start of something that changed between the two kids.

===

Izuku lay in his bed, listening to little noises coming from other bunks before calling lights out. He was now 15 years old, head counselor of cabin six. He received the position at age 13 when their former head counselor stepped down from her position and left; now she would only occasionally come back as one of the instructors and the architect when there were new architectures needed to be built at the camp fields. Another senior camper, who was the second oldest camper in this cabin, would've taken the spot since that senior camper was the second-in-command of the ex-counselor, but that guy left for college at the same year that the ex-counselor stepped down, so the position was taken by Izuku, who had stayed at camp longer than the rest of the cabin, despite being younger than some of them.

“It’s about time now,” Izuku called out to his cabinmates. “Lights out.”

The lights in the cabin went out, and people started to gradually fall asleep. Izuku, on the other hand, had trouble sleeping. Another game of capture-the-flag was coming up next-next Friday, and he had to find another strategy to go against Katsuki. The other team, led by Katsuki’s cabin, had been winning six times in a row so far (counting from last year), and they were probably aiming for breaking the record by continuing on winning.

Izuku turned in his blanket and looked out the window. It was probably New Moon, so it was a night off for the moon goddess as he couldn’t see the moon from the sky, but he could still see some silvery glow coming from the goddess’s empty cabin nextdoor.

Camp hadn’t officially started yet for the summer, but Izuku and Katsuki’s school ended early this year due to reasons that students need not to worry about, so they both came to camp earlier than usual. Their parents sent them off together—they do that every year—so there was no choice but to travel along with Katsuki. Izuku could feel the awkwardness of being alone with Katsuki on their way here. Katsuki would just look out the window while listening to his earphones, and Izuku would just study his notes or write into his own notebooks.

\---

Things weren’t like that in the past, though.

Izuku thought back on their first trip to camp. He and Katsuki were being escorted by Phillips, and the satyr didn’t wear any disguise, so his furry goat legs were exposed to the public.

“You’re a half… goat?” Katsuki questioned Phillips when they were on the train. “Half-man, half-goat… So you’re a satyr?”

"You’re well informed,” Phillips replied. “Did your mom teach you about these stuffs?”

“Isn't this basic stuffs? Why wouldn’t anyone know about this?” Katsuki said cockily. He was a smart kid. He couldn’t quite remember where he learned the information from, but he just knew more stuffs than other kids around him. He’s also more talented as he learned things faster than others, which was one of the traits that Izuku admired about Katsuki since they were kids. The boy was so confident and awesome, so gifted yet talented, it seemed like there were nothing else that was brighter than the boy in front of him. The cocky boy may not have good attitude sometimes, but still… Izuku still looked up to him a lot.

“So why don’t anyone else see your legs? Can’t they see it?” Izuku asked analytically. “Or is there something not letting people see it? Like the glowing eyes I saw in class, but no one else saw it…There was something not letting them see it?”

“Well, you’re kind of right,” Phillips paused for it bit, thinking on how to explain things in an easier way. “There’s this thing call the Mist. It’s some kind of magic that can change what most people can see. It prevents most people from seeing monsters and other stuffs.” He looked at Katsuki. "Your mom, and you guys are kind of different. When you can see through the magic that can fool most people, we call it seeing through the Mist. Most people can’t see through the Mist. Got it?”

“So…” Izuku thought for a moment. “There’s the Mist, so most people, other than us, can’t see your… goat legs, right?”

“Well, I prefer to call them hooves, but you’re right.”

“So you’re not a monster?” Katsuki asked.

“Nope. Satyrs are protectors.” Phillips replied. “We protect kids like you.”

“So satyrs and monsters… They’re real?” Izuku asked in a scared voice.

“Well, I am one in front of your eyes, and you saw the glowing eyes earlier.” Phillips shrugged. “Unless you don’t believe what you’re seeing, but yeah, we’re all real.”

They let the information sank in for a moment. "So why do we have to leave the house? Why do you have to protect us?” Katsuki asked in a skeptical tone.

The satyr didn’t explain much more because it was dangerous to know things too early. “I’ll explain the rest when we arrive. It’s safer that way,” he stated when they got off the train.

Phillips fell a bit silent after that, not letting the boys asking more questions, so the two boys chatted about school and new hero comics along the way. Izuku remembered that the interactions were very friendly and cheerful since they shared the same environment and so many interests; they even admired the same hero in the hero comic series. They were also clever enough not to bring up whatever happened after they left the school.

It was very late, but they arrived at camp without anything chasing them, which was extremely rare in regular standards since usually newcomers tend to be chased by monsters while they ran all the way to the camp borders. They climbed over a big hill with a pine tree standing at the hilltop. There was a golden sheet of something hanging on the lowest branch of the pine, and a huge dragon curled around the base of the tree. A huge statue of a Greek goddess stood near the distinct pine tree. Phillips told them the statue was the Athena Parthenos, and the statue, along with the pine tree and the Golden Fleece hanging on its branch, protected the borders of the camp. The dragon, Peleus, was trained to protect the Golden Fleece. 

Izuku’s brain started to wire up the moment he saw the mythical objects and beings. He had felt something the moment he looked at the statue, but he was too focused on everything in front of his eyes that he let the strange feeling pass on. There were dragons, magical trees, magical fleece, and magical statue of a goddess, who was the goddess of wisdom that was often heard of in various stories. Young Izuku felt a bit overwhelmed as he silently counted, but he knew there would be more to come.

They went straight to the camp headquarters called the Big House—a four-story huge building painted in sky blue—to meet with a man in wheelchair. The man in the wheelchair is called Chiron, who was the camp activities director. He greeted and welcomed them, made a brief self-intro, and stated that they would be put into cabin eleven before they were claimed.

“I’ll let Phillips lead you.” The man in the wheelchair looked out at the dark night sky. “It is nearly curfew. I will let you two settle down first for tonight. Camp tour can wait for tomorrow. Phillips, would you bring them to cabin eleven? I’ll inform Alice, and you can turn them over to her.”

It felt like being tossed around by different adults. First Katsuki’s mother, then Phillips, then now this Chiron guy. Katsuki grew a bit furious for being tossed around, so he threw out his rage on Phillips once they stepped outside of the Big House. “So what is going on? Where is this place? When can we leave here? Who are you people? Why do we have to be here? I won’t obey until you explain everything to us.” Izuku was a bit awed by how Katsuki pinned down all the 5 W’s (who, what, when, where, and why) that were needed to know the whole situation without pausing. He himself was a bit too wired-up and overwhelmed to think much, let alone asking questions.

“Well..." Phillips said cautiously. “How much do you know about Greek myths?”

They didn’t get to move to cabin eleven until Katsuki got all his questions answered. Although his attitude wasn’t good, Katsuki wasn’t that unreasonable, Izuku thought, since he did also think they deserved some sort of explanation before moving on. Phillips explained to them that the Olympian gods that the Greeks worshipped still existed since they were a powerful part of the Western Civilization. They moved from country to country as the center of the power shifted, like moving from Greece to Rome, and now the center of the civilization is at America. Also, since the Olympian gods were still around, their old habits lived as well—which was having children with mortals, resulting in half-bloods like them. They were the children of the Olympian gods.

As to the reason why they had to leave their home and stay at camp, it was because they would be under attack by monsters. Phillips couldn't explain too much beforehand since the more they knew that they were demigods, the stronger their scent would be, and monsters would be attracted by the scent of half-bloods. 

Izuku chuckled when he remembered how he and Katsuki tried to smell themselves while Phillips explained, but the satyr told them this "scent" thing was only sensed by monsters and satyrs, which was why Phillips knew Izuku was a demigod as well when they met.

"Mrs. Bakugou had only called for help for Katsuki, but she didn't know that Izuku was a half-blood as well," Phillips explained. "But I think the reason that both of you attracted monsters so early was because you two were too close. Usually a single half-blood start to attract monsters at eleven or twelve, but the more half-bloods gather, the stronger the scent becomes, so more monsters would be attracted."

Katsuki frowned at the news, and scowled at Izuku as if it was his fault. Izuku looked back warily, not sure how to react. It wasn't _his_ fault that they lived in the same neighborhood.

"Now, don't look at each other like this," Phillips tried to calm them down. "It was the Fates that had brought you guys together. You guys weren't the first campers to come here young, there were a few others that came even younger than you guys. No need to get personal.”

“Fates?" Izuku asked in curiosity. “Why fates instead of fate? Fate should be more than one?”

“Stupid Deku, the Fates are the three beings that control people’s destiny,” Katsuki said in annoyance.

“Oh…” Izuku looked down at his feet in embarrassment. He had no idea how Katsuki had known these information, but he felt a bit stupid for not knowing. It was that exact moment that made Izuku determined to learn as much information about Greek mythology as he could. Katsuki looked cool for knowing lots of things, and Izuku didn’t want to be too far off from his friend. He would have to stock up some notebooks in the first place, though.

Phillips glanced between them and continued. “You see the cabins down there?” Phillips pointed at the cabins at the commons area that was not too far away from the Big House. “Those cabins, one represents each Olympian god. You’ll have to live in the cabin that represents your godly parent. Until we know who your godly parent is, you’ll be in cabin eleven.”

“Cabin… eleven?” Izuku asked.

“It’s the cabin of Hermes. God of messengers, doctors, merchants, and a lot more. As also being the god of travellers, he’ll accept newcomers like you. Anymore questions?”

It took a lot to process and sink in. Myths were not myths. Ancient stories were real histories. Not only did monsters and satyrs exist, but also powerful beings such as gods. They were only half-humans. One of their parents weren’t their real parents.

“One more…” Katsuki swallowed. “So when will we be… claimed?”

“It depends. If you’re lucky enough, then you’ll get claimed earlier. If not, then it’ll take… quite a while. Anything else?”

Katsuki and Izuku glanced at each other in silence. Phillips took that as a no. “If not, then let’s head over. Alice will be waiting.”

On that happy note, they were led to cabin eleven.

They walked towards the cabin in silence as they curiously looked about their surroundings. Although it was nighttime, the visibility wasn’t that poor under the moonlight. The whole place was in a huge valley surrounded by hills. Strawberry fields lay flat near the Big House, and an empty volleyball court stood nearby as well. Greek architectures scattered throughout the place, and they could see dark waves touching the beach at the far end ahead of them. There was a huge forest spreaded to their left, from which they could hear suspicious noises that didn’t sound like regular animals. They passed by a building that looked like it was stacked with dangerous objects. The amphitheater was lit by the bonfire in the center, and there were quite a lot of people sitting on the seats. They could hear someone playing the guitar, followed by people singing along the tune. Although it was late and Phillips seemed too tired to give a camp tour at the moment, the camp looked like a pleasant place.

They then arrived at the cabins area. Not many campers were around, since most of them were gathered at the campfire. And although it was nighttime, they could still see 20 completely different cabins forming a big Ω shape facing the central space that was about the size of a soccer field (yes, there were 20 cabins when Izuku and Katsuki first arrived, but new ones were added later on). Every one of them looked completely different from one another, and the most noticeable one amongst them was glowing silver in the moonlight. They didn’t know back then, but later on they learned that it was the cabin of the moon goddess, Artemis.

They arrived at the most worn out cabin amongst the 20, and Alice, head counselor of the Hermes cabin, greeted them in front of the cabin. "So you’re the new campers?” she eyed both of them. “What are you names?”

Katsuki didn’t seem like in the mood to respond, so Izuku did the job for him. “I’m Izuku Midoriya, and this is Katsuki Bakugou. Ni-nice to meet you!”

Alice turned a bit delighted when she heard their names. Izuku suspected it was probably driven by the cordial feeling of having the same nationality. “I’m Alice Miyazawa. Welcome to cabin eleven.”

===

Izuku sighed as he thought back to what seemed like eons ago. He could still remember how he and Kacchan cuddled up to each other the first night they settled down in the Hermes cabin. It was a completely new place, and they felt insecure. It was indeed true that they felt like they only had each other at that moment, and they were even lucky enough to have each other from the start. There were a lot of kids that ran away from home by themselves. A lot of them successfully made it to camp in peace, but there were some that never made it.

Izuku closed his eyes as he tried to get some sleep while sounds of snoring came from other bunks.

\---

There was an official camp tour for them the next morning of their arrival, and they finally saw things that weren’t too significant under the night sky, and they also entered the buildings that they didn’t get to see much the previous night. They didn't get to enter the woods though, since they were told they had to be armed to do so. It was dangerous to wander around in the woods.

The camp offered a lot of dangerous activities, such as letting campers practice and have access to a great amount of dangerous weapons, like they had javelin range, archery range, combat arena, and great amount of blades like swords, spears, knives, and they even had shotguns and grenades in the armory. Some campers were making their own weapons in the forges. Another dangerous activity is the climbing wall, which spilled lava from the sides while campers tried to climb to the top. Lighter activities included horse riding—or rather, pegasus riding since instead of regular horses, the camp offered winged horses (which were called pegasi in plural).

The most normal activity was probably arts and crafts, just like regular summer camp activities unless you ignore the non-human instructors such as satyrs or dryads (a.k.a. tree nymphs). In a nutshell, activities at camp were like regular summer camp activities—well, that is if you overlook the use of real blades for lessons, dangerous landmark such as lava-spilling climbing wall, flying pegasi for horse-rising, or non-human instructors such as satyrs or dryads (a.k.a. tree nymphs) for some of the activities.

There weren’t any signs of claiming during their first year, so they were settled in the Hermes cabin for that summer. That year was yet the most peaceful days Izuku had ever had during his days at camp. He thought...he _thought_ they had grown closer during those days. They were close enough for a start, being family friends and all that, and being in a new environment made Izuku glued to Katsuki like a little tail wherever Katsuki went. Izuku knew he might’ve been a bit annoying, but he couldn’t help but follow Katsuki around. Following Katsuki around seemed to be like his personal habit ever since early childhood. And yet, although Katsuki seemed slightly annoyed, he seemed kind of used to it, and even though he usually teased Izuku for being a weakling and kind of bossed him around, he still treated Izuku nicer than how he was doing right now. He didn’t even refuse to let Izuku tag along.

Throughout most camp activities, Katsuki was pretty impressive even as a young kid. He did well on nearly all activities (although not as outstanding as those demigods who were born to master certain skills), and was particularly good in sparring. On the other hand, although Izuku didn’t screw things up too badly, he pretty much did a poor job on most subjects. The one thing that he didn’t do too bad on was sparring, like Katsuki, but only to some extent. He was pretty good at practicing alone, but he was too afraid to spar during one-on-one that he couldn’t stop himself from trembling. Izuku wasn’t sure if he was just too scared of Kacchan though, since they were always somehow paired together.

“You’re gonna get yourself killed one day if you continue to act like a coward, Deku.” Bakugou told him more than once after sword-fighting sessions. Izuku did know that his life would depend on these training lessons if he want to go home after the summer, or he would be too weak to survive outside of camp. But the problem he had was he never thought he would win against the never-losing Kacchan that he had known for years. The boy was like the embodiment of victory for never losing.

Izuku looked down at his feet. If he wanted to surpass Kacchan, he thought to himself, he would need to come up with strategies. He wasn’t sure how to start with those ideas, but he would have to— 

“Come on, Deku! We should get going now.”

===

Izuku woke up with a start. He could still hear Katsuki’s last word in his dream still ringing in his ears. He had fallen asleep without himself realizing, and he had woken up way too early. As far as he could tell, the sun hadn’t risen yet.

Demigods usually had weird dreams. When he was younger, he’d heard from senior campers describing how they dreamed about other people’s past, or dreamed about watching events from other places that were happening on live. Some dreams even had them stalking at other people’s side. There were experienced campers who even claimed to have stalked on the enemies’ base during warfare while they dreamed. Most dreams were just random, and they couldn’t choose what to dream.

None of those were Izuku’s case, though. He had been dreaming about his past way too frequently these days, which made him rethink about his past even during daytime, and looking upon the past made him dream more about his past. A weird vicious cycle, he would say.

Izuku scientifically analyzed that it was probably too peaceful these days as he continued to dream about his own past; either that, or his past had something to do with something that was about to come up. He hoped it was the former since no one wanted weird things to happen during peacetime.

In fact, both of his assumptions were quite right, but Izuku had been overthinking and worrying too much about some sort of bloodthirsty event that was going to interrupt the peace, which wasn’t really his case. Couldn’t blame Izuku for worrying too much since usually demigods learn the hard way that their lives won’t be in peace for long.

It wasn’t until all of the drama ended that he realized what his dreams really meant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: I know the mentioning of Inko contradicted Izuku being a child of cabin six, but it'll be explained on the next chapter.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a.k.a. Ass long details on daily life at Camp Half-Blood yeaaaah

Izuku lay in his bed with his eyes opened and mind racing until he heard quiet movements coming from outside, which were quiet noises other than the usual faint screeches from the woods and the snorings of his cabin mates. It was still a bit dark, but he could tell the dawn was probably breaking judging from the changing color of the sky. He was fully awake now, and figured that maybe he should go for a jog since he had no desire to go back to sleep. He sat up from his bed to get dressed up quietly without waking anyone else from their sleep. He then grabbed his water bottle and swiftly stepped out the door.

Dawn was indeed starting to break, and he wasn’t the only one who was awake. Several campers and satyrs were working at the strawberry fields to help with the growth of the strawberries. A few campers were heading to the public bathroom for morning showers. There were tinkering sounds coming from the forges. It wasn’t all deserted, and it seemed like a pretty good timing to go for a jog.

Izuku did a quick warm-up and set off. He first circled the outskirt of the cabins area, slowing down a bit when he jogged past cabin five, then he headed to the canoe lake and jogged along the canoe creek towards the beach.

Izuku set down his water bottle on a rock when he reached the shore and started his way along the shoreline. The waves were gently padding onto the sand as the wet scent of the sea filled up Izuku’s senses and lungs. Although there were a lot of scientific studies describing how the sound of waves would calm people down, Izuku had trouble settling down his mind or telling his brain to shut up as he jogged along the beach. His mind was still full of what he dreamed about half an hour ago, and the details in his dreams were way too precise and vivid that he was having a hard time to not think about them. 

That was one of the problems of Izuku’s dreams: every single thing in his dreams was way too substantial and colorful. In his dreams, the sunlight was so blinding that it hurt his eyes, and every sound or voice in his dreams sent ringing vibes from his ears to his skull; food he tasted in his dreams left aftertaste on his tongue, and the stinky smells of odor pierced through his nostrils as he could feel the sweat trickling down the surface of his neck when they were exhausted during activities in his dreams.

Everything felt stronger and more materialized than the reality that he didn’t even know if those were considered as lucid dreaming, and he had trouble ignoring them. The dreams had been going on for a few weeks, and it had him so distracted during final exams that he had trouble telling himself not to think about his past when he tried to study. Now he was seriously considering on consulting those sleepy guys in Hypnos cabin, as Hypnos was the god of sleep, children of Hypnos were usually experts on sleeping or dreaming problems.

“ _Hypnos, god of sleep._ “ Izuku muttered as he recited notes from one of his notebook: Greek Mythology Analysis #10. “ _Son of Nyx and Erebus, Twin brother of Thanatos. Roman counterpart is Somnus._ ” He paused a second to take a breath while still jogging, “ _Anything that had to do with sleep, including dreaming. Dreams are sometimes related to memories. Certain memory loss can be brought back by dreaming or by the power of Hypnos…_ “

Izuku’s mumble faltered by the mentioning of “memory.” He hoped he was hallucinating from the aftermath this morning, which was Katsuki’s last words in his dream still ringing in his ears. He was trying his best to ignore it.

Those days in the Hermes cabin were so peaceful, Izuku thought to himself as he continued to jog.

\---

In fact, Katsuki immediately got claimed the second year they went to camp. 

After their first summer, both of them were trained enough that they returned home instead of staying as a year-rounder, and successfully returned to a kind-of-normal school life without getting killed by bloodthirsty monsters during school days. 

Izuku could still clearly remember the day Katsuki got claimed.

It was humid and sweaty the day they headed straight for camp after the end of semester. After a long ride from their home to camp, the moment they stepped into the camp boundaries, Izuku noticed something was glowing red above them, like someone suddenly turned on a red light bulb above their heads. He looked up and yelped. A glowing red hologram was hovering above Katsuki’s head. Katsuki saw Izuku stopping on his track and stopped as well to see what Izuku was staring at above his head: it was a red glowing hologram shaped like a spear. Both of them stared at the glowing thing above Katsuki’s head in confusion as they didn’t know what was going on.

The Fates were probably helping, or rather they were just being lucky enough. 

A camper from Hermes cabin happened to see them from afar the moment they arrived, and he also saw the glowing hologram above Katsuki’s head when he headed over to their direction to greet the two kids. The glowing thing had faded by the time the Hermes camper reached them, and the two boys looked a bit confused.

“Did you see that?” Izuku asked the Hermes camper. “Is Kacchan in trouble?”

The son of Hermes looked bewildered for a moment, “Uh, no. Actually,” he turned to Katsuki. “You just got claimed. By Ares, the god of war.”

There was a moment of silence before Izuku started cheering in awe.

“Wow, Kacchan! You got claimed! Congratulations!” Izuku continued to cheer on as he smiled, “I hope I get claimed this summer as well, I wonder who my godly parent is…”

Katsuki cracked a smile at Izuku before he turned to the Hermes camper, “So what do I do now?”

“You get kicked out—”

“What?!”

“—of Hermes cabin and move into Ares cabin, of course!” The crooked mischievous smile of the older boy clearly showed how he intentionally paused in between his sentences.

The old camper was helpful enough to bring Katsuki all the way to the Ares cabin and to find his head counselor. Izuku watched from afar until Katsuki’s figure disappeared behind the front door of the red cabin.

“So… “ Izuku turned to ask the Hermes camper, who was eyeing the freckled boy since Katsuki entered the Ares cabin. “I have to stay until I get claimed?”

The older camper shrugged. “That’s how things work. You’ll be with us until your godly parent send you some sort of sign.”

Izuku knew from that moment that he wouldn’t be able to see his childhood friend that often anymore.

Since then, Katsuki settled in cabin five, while Izuku remained in the Hermes cabin. That was the moment when Izuku thought their paths started to completely part ways.

===

"Oi.”

“Oi. Deku!”

Izuku snapped out of his trance. He had lost himself in thinking back to the past while he was jogging. Izuku stopped on his track and jerked his head towards the source of the voice to find the subject being none other than the reappearing figure in his dreams.

“K-Kacchan! G’morning!” Izuku’s eyes shifted around, not meeting Katsuki’s. “What are you, uh, doing here?”

Katsuki was standing by a rock, and seemed like he was in the middle of stretching. He was wearing a black tank top instead of the regular orange camp T-shirt, and he was already sweating from head to toe. The rock he was standing next to had a folded yellow towel and a water bottle standing on top. Maybe he’s in the middle of working out or he just ended his workout, Izuku thought as he tried to look at Katsuki without their eyes meeting. In return, the blonde eyed the teen in front of him skeptically, “Regular morning routine. What are _you_ doing here?”

“I, uh, I’m just jogging.” Izuku took a quick glance back at Katsuki, and the blonde was narrowing his eyes. He was probably in Kacchan’s way, or maybe he had blocked Kacchan’s view or something, so that’s probably why Kacchan was narrowing his eyes on him. Izuku did a quick subjective analysis before darting his gaze away, “I’ll, uh, be outta your way then. Bye.”

On that note, Izuku verged his way towards the direction he came from, leaving Katsuki behind.

Katsuki wasn’t expecting the freckled boy to appear at the beach in the morning. At least he hadn’t been seeing the nerd anywhere near that area during his morning routines in the past few years. He thought back to how Izuku was darting his gaze when they talked, and how that son of Athena avoided further contact as much as possible. Katsuki clicked his tongue and went back to his stretching. He wasn’t thinking when he called out to the nerd, whom seemed to be spacing out and not even seeing Katsuki standing right in front of him. Maybe he should’ve just stepped away and let the other boy pass.

Even though they hadn’t been hanging around each other that much, Katsuki had been noticing Izuku acting weirder and weirder around him, and lately the weirdo had been spacing out every so often, and the frequency had been increasing. That, Katsuki concluded, was very strange regarding a child of Athena. Children of Athena were a pack of brainy kids who always think and analyze. When looking into their eyes, it could be easily seen how calculative they were as they seemed to dissect every detail of the person they’re looking at, but when Izuku spaced out, Katsuki could see nothing. It seemed like thoughts were being whipped out of that nerd while he lived in his own little world in that nerdy brain of his.

He wasn’t sure why such bizarreness bothered him, but it had been nagging him ever since the first time he saw Izuku spacing out. Maybe that nerd was under some sort of curse? Demigods’ curses could be weird, such as the Apollo campers liked to do the rhyming curse on other campers, and those campers could only speak in rhyming couplets for days. Most curses were on the level of practical jokes which wouldn’t do much harm. Katsuki wondered if that was Deku’s case.

He shook his head. He’s curious, but it’s not his business anyway. Katsuki did his final stretch and continued his morning workout.

The water bottle was standing alone on the rock just like how Izuku had left it. He immediately made a beeline to it and trudged back to his own cabin. It wasn’t an intense jog, but he still wanted to take a quick shower before breakfast. About an hour had passed since he headed out, and now the place seemed busier while more campers were up doing their morning routines. He greeted some on his way back to the Athena cabin. Most of his siblings were already up by the time he entered. He briefly greeted them while he grabbed his toiletries and quickly went outside for the showers.

The showers were in the public bathroom, which was a cinder-block building near the cabins area. There was nothing fancy about the old public bathroom, but it was the only option for most of the cabins. Only some newer cabins had the privilege of having their own shower places, which didn’t seem fair, but nothing could be done unless the older cabins were willing to reduce the interior space for the sake of one bathroom area per a dozen kids in a cabin. 

The warm water soothed his skin pores and trickled down to the floor as Izuku stood under the shower. The only thing that popped up in his mind was his encounter with Katsuki some minutes ago since he wasn’t expecting the son of Ares up in that ungodly morning hour. He had assumed Katsuki was still sleeping in the Ares cabin. He thought of how he had stupidly slowed down when he passed by that cabin. 

“ _No, wait. I slowed down because…_ ” Izuku was racking through his brain since he wasn’t really sure why he had slowed down in the first place. His thoughts were going through some analytical twists before he figured something out. " _Because… it was right across my cabin, so it’s half of the perimeter for my jogging route,_ ” he sighed through his nose and was a bit relieved that he had found a conclusion. " _It’s just for adjusting my pace. Yeah, that’s probably why. I don’t think it had anything to do with Kacchan…_ “

He closed his eyes and thought of how the scent of the beach under the awakening sun overwhelmed his senses. How the blonde hair spiked upwards even though Kacchan was sweating all over. How Kacchan’s skin glistened with sweat under the morning sun. How the eternal scowl of the teen was eyeing him… No, wait. Back up. He was drifting off again. He was probably just imagining some of them since he didn’t even look at the blonde in the eyes. Maybe he should get out of the bathroom right now. He shivered as he shut off the warm shower, and quickly dried himself as he changed into his regular camp clothes, which were the orange camp T-shirt, jeans, and his favorite iconic red sneakers.

Izuku’s hair dried slower than he thought. He was sitting on his bed with a towel over his hair, and he’s trying to speed up the drying process by ruffling the towel through his hair. He usually jogged and showered at night, so it was his first time trying to rush through this type of routine right before breakfast. It was a few more minutes to eight, and he would need to leave for breakfast with or without wet hair. Fortunately, one of his half-sisters lent him her hair dryer, and a distant horn blew right when he finally got his hair completely dry. The horn was the conch shell signalling the meal time, so now he had to lead his cabin to the dining pavilion. Izuku quickly unplugged the hair dryer and returned it to its owner, and finally stepped out of the cabin before calling out to his siblings, “Cabin six, file out!”

The Athena cabin followed his lead and filed into the commons yard. Other campers were filing out of their respective cabins as well, so Izuku was lucky enough to watch Katsuki leading the Ares campers out of the cabin from right across. Unfortunately, Katsuki seemed to feel his gaze again, and he looked directly at Izuku’s direction with a scowl. Izuku immediately turned away before their eyes could meet, and marched towards the dining pavilion.

The dining pavilion was on a hill that overlooked the sea. It was framed by Greek columns, but it didn’t have walls or roof. It didn’t need those since there was magic that kept bad weather away from the camp, so they were always sitting under the sky when they were having food. At the center of the pavilion, fire was burning in a bronze brazier about the size of a bathtub. There were 25 tables settled around the center fire as each cabin had its own table plus the head table for the camp directors, and each table had a white tablecloth with purple trim. Dryads and satyrs came as well, gathering around the pavilion as the campers sat in their respective tables. There were currently about 70 campers in total. It was still early in the summer, so more campers would arrive after their schools ended for the semester.

The activities director stood up from the head table as everyone had settled down. He raised a glass. “To the gods!”

The campers raised their glasses as well and repeated the blessing.

The dryads stepped forward and served trays of food, all of which were healthy stuffs for the morning: various fruits, salad, bread, etc. Before they dug in, everyone stood up from their table and scraped a portion of their food into the big bronze brazier as the offering to the gods. Izuku could smell the whiffs of smoke that came from his offering when he went forward and scraped a piece of bread into the fire, and it didn’t smell like regular gagging smoke. It was said that everyone smelled different things from burnt offerings, but Izuku would say it smelled of caramel and hot corn soup, with a hint of fresh baked apple pie and fried pork with eggs and onions. It didn’t sound like those would go well together but they did nonetheless.

Izuku sat back down to his table and studied his empty glass. The glasses were enchanted that it would automatically be filled with whatever drink it was spoken to. Well, nothing alcoholic, of course. He thought for a moment and said, “Milk.” Pure white liquid filled the glass.

The freckled boy glanced up from his food when everyone was digging in and chatting. He chewed on his breakfast as he scanned the faces of his half-siblings and thought of the times before he got into the Athena cabin and how he finally ended up with these people.

\---

Izuku didn’t know how and why, but after Katsuki was claimed, the hot tempered boy had started to act unfriendly towards him. It wasn’t directly right after Ketsuki got claimed, but Izuku could clearly tell the difference between the times when they were both in Hermes cabin and the times when only Izuku was undetermined. It wasn’t that nobody in the Hermes cabin bothered Izuku when he was alone; some Hermes campers even tried to reach out to the lonely boy, but the problem was he still considered Katsuki to be his closest friend even though they were in separate cabins, so he even still tried to follow Katsuki around during break time even though they were supposed to have different schedules for their activities.

At first, Katsuki seemed okay with Izuku following him around, but at some point, Katsuki started to push him around, not wanting the unclaimed kid to get close. Izuku never understood what led to Katsuki’s behavior, so he kept on following the blonde around. 

“Go away, stupid Deku! You’re just a useless Undetermined! Now get out of my way!” Katsuki constantly yelled at him for tagging along, but that never changed his behavior.

Thinking back to his own behavior, Izuku understood that he may be irritating and annoying, but he couldn’t help with that. He felt safer when he was with the blonde boy, and looking up to the boy made him want to stick closer to the admired figure even more.

He did eventually grew out of it, though. He stopped following him around when he got out of the Hermes cabin, which he remained in until he turned 10 in the middle of his third year at camp.

Izuku was an unusual case. Before he was identified as a child of Athena, he hadn’t thought too much during some of the past events, but there were moments that had him showing his traits of being a child of Athena even though his demigod traits hadn’t manifested as much when he was younger, such as trying to analyze things that he saw for the first time, or trying to learn and take notes on everything he learned about Greek mythology, or thinking about using strategies against Kacchan for sparring, or any other small stuffs that he had never taken account of. Although they were just tiny glimpses of his demigod traits, hadn’t he overlook those moments, he would’ve probably known who his godly parent was before Kacchan, Izuku thought to himself.

All children of Athena were claimed upon birth. Since the wisdom goddess was one the of goddesses who had sworn upon eternal maidenhood, her demigod children weren’t born in the usual way. She gave birth by having her thoughts combined with the mortal man she loved, so her demigod children were born from the minds, just like the goddess herself. As she considered the meeting of minds to be the purest kind of love, the children were “gifts” to the men that she favored. Usually the mortal parent would know immediately when the child was born, so the children wouldn’t need to wait to get claimed, since most gods liked to disguise themselves as regular humans in most cases, and their mortal lovers wouldn’t even know they were gods. Therefore, Izuku’s father had known his son was a demigod child of Athena all along.

Izuku didn’t know any of these until his father told him his identity and after he got accepted into the Athena cabin. 

Izuku’s father, Hisashi Midoriya, used to work in the vicinity of his graduate school, and his son was born after the man had completely adapted to his job. When Izuku was two years old, the man met Inko and fell in love with the woman, and they got married when Izuku was three. Although he married Inko, he never told the woman about the mythical world around them since he deeply considered she wouldn’t believe him, and he didn’t plan on telling Izuku about who he really was until the boy grew older. On the other hand, Inko only knew Hisashi was a young single dad, and she didn’t mind having a child that wasn’t hers. She truly loved her husband and the boy no matter what, so she never thought of telling Izuku that she wasn’t his birth parent as she raised the boy like her own nonetheless.

When Izuku was five, Hisashi was sent to long-term business trips overseas. Before he set off abroad, he and his wife agreed that he would go by himself after going through a lot of discussions. Hisashi didn’t really want to leave them behind, but Inko didn’t want to leave the country, and insisted that it would be better if their son didn’t have to go through too much changes in the environment. It would also probably be economically less stressful if only one person in the family went overseas. She thought it would just be fine if Hisashi just came back during long breaks, and she finally convinced her husband to go alone.

As Hisashi was constantly overseas, no one around Izuku knew about the boy’s identity. After Izuku and Katsuki’s first summer at camp, Mitsuki grew curious and started to suspect who was Izuku’s godly parent. At first, she logically thought Inko was Izuku’s biological mortal parent, since she’d barely seen Hisashi around. It wasn’t until after the kids’ third summer at camp that Mitsuki finally asked Inko about Izuku’s dad, and Inko admitted Izuku wasn’t her own child.

To Mitsuki’s dismay, “the parent that was always overseas” turned out to be the actual mortal parent, instead of the one who stayed and took care of the child. How ironic was that? Nevertheless, Mitsuki managed to get contact with Hisashi through Inko’s help, even though Inko had no idea why she had to make contact with her husband.

After a lot of twists and turns, Mitsuki finally managed to call and explain directly to Hisashi that Izuku was sent to Camp Half-Blood, but before she could explain it was a place for young demigods to learn how to survive and fight monsters, Hisashi spoke up.

“Yes, I do know Camp Half-Blood, and I do know my son is a demigod, but you mean, my son was sent to camp… even though he wasn’t at teen age yet?” It was late at Hisashi’s timezone, but his brain immediately woke up by the mentioning of his son.

Mitsuki scowled, “Yeah. Didn’t Izuku say anything? I heard you call him regularly.” 

“I wasn’t planning to send him away that early. Inko only said he goes to a summer camp every summer with a neighbor boy, and she made it sound like a very regular summer camp. As to my son… He didn’t tell me much either. He may have thought I was the step-parent instead.” Hisashi sighed through the phone, “I have to blame myself for not being close enough.”

“So... do you know his godly parent? Are you going to tell him or not?” Mitsuki was a bit frustrated at the one on the other side of the phone. He sounded like a very careless parent even though he seemed like he knew everything.

“Yes. I will speak to him in a few days on his upcoming birthday. Thank you for telling me all of this, Mrs. Bakugou.”

Before Hisashi called Izuku, he indeed thought his stepmother was his actual mother since his father rarely returned home for long-term business trips. Even though his father called him regularly, his assumption never wavered, and he had always thought his godly parent was a male god. He had gone through a lot of guesses, and even considered _maybe_ he was Katsuki’s sibling, for he wasn’t too bad at wielding weapons as well. Nonetheless, that thought got thrown out of the window as soon as it got into the mind, since they’re apparently _way_ too different to be siblings.

On their third summer at camp, days slowly went by, and on the day Izuku turned 10, he finally received the phone call that changed his life.

After he told the camp director about his father’s phone call (while also getting busted for having a cellphone around since using cellphones was kind of against the rules), Izuku Midoriya waved goodbye at the Hermes cabin, and officially became one of the Athena campers.

===

“Izuku? Hey, you listening?” 

“Hm?” Izuku looked up at the one who’s calling him. It was his half-sister who lent him the hair dryer earlier.

“We’re heading back to the cabin. We have to prepare for the inspection.” She looked down at his plate, “Or do you want us to wait for you?”

Izuku looked down at his plate as well and grimaced. He only finished half of the plate in front of him. He wiped his face with his palm and sighed, “You guys go ahead. I’ll head over when I’m finished.”

He watched as the rest of the table set off to the cabins area. The rest of the dining pavilion was nearly deserted, with only a couple of campers chatting at another table. He wasn’t sure if he was just thinking too hard or he was zoning out in the middle of eating, but no matter which one it was, he better hurry for the inspection. His dirty clothes were still left on his bed, after all.

The cabin inspection took place every morning, at which one or two of the senior counselors would go around and inspect each cabin with a papyrus scroll checklist, making sure things were neat and clean. Cabins with the highest score would get the privilege of first shower hour, and cabins with the lowest score would have to do kitchen patrol. Not wanting to drag down the whole cabin, Izuku quickly scarfed down his food, almost choking himself in the process, and headed over to his cabin.

By the time Izuku had arrived, the whole cabin was already neat except for his bed. His siblings were now mopping the floor and polishing the armors that were hung on the wall. He quickly went to his bed and tucked his dirty clothes away into the laundry bin. There wasn’t much of his belongings that were lying around, so he tidied up his area as best as he could, and was now watching his siblings doing final checks for the cleanliness and tidiness.

He thought of how the Hermes cabin was always messy when he stayed in that cabin. Some older Hermes campers told him how it usually was way more crowded than any other cabins in the past, so the Hermes cabin was just used to being the messiest, but saved for the Ares cabin since they didn’t usually do a neat job in cleaning either. 

Now that Izuku was in the Athena cabin, which was kept extremely tidy all the time even though he himself wasn’t really good at cleaning, he was constantly grateful for not needing to do the kitchen patrols for the camp. He wondered what it looked like right now in Kacchan’s cabin. It wasn’t like Izuku hadn’t seen the interior before since he had done cabin inspections on his shift as a cabin counselor, but somehow he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about the Ares cabin. Last time he’d seen it, which was some time last summer, it was as tidy and clean as his first visit to the cabin years ago. When Izuku first saw how clean the Ares cabin was, he was completely caught off guard. It wasn’t his fault that he was assuming it to be a bit messy, since judging from the poor paint job of the cabin’s exterior, no one would expect the cabin to be neat inside. 

Izuku wasn’t the only one to be surprised, though. When he first became cabin counselor, he had heard other senior counselors being surprised as well by the cleanliness of the Ares cabin, and many had said Katsuki was the one who changed how it used to be, but since Katsuki became the cabin head before Izuku had, Izuku had no way to prove whether the rumor of Ares cabin being messy in the past was true or not.

A knock on the door broke Izuku away from his thoughts, and every movement in the cabin died down. He looked up at the door and saw the figure in his thoughts standing in front of him, again.

“Inspection time." Katsuki Bakugou said in his usual irritated tone, "All of you. Get the hell outta here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just saying that I edited out some minor redundant passages for chapter 1 when I uploaded this chapter.
> 
> Oh btw I'm not sure how much ppl are following this story, but I write my stories very very very slow (cuz I tried to do 5k words per chapter... Probably big mistake here since it's my first time writing fanfics in English... But I'm OCD so I'll keep up this 5k/chapter thing).
> 
> I do have a general outline for the whole story, so I'll definitely try to finish this, so please be patient if you wanna follow this Orz
> 
> Sorry again for my slow writing T_T


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finals have finally ended!! Time to fill up the ongoing third chapter!

“Kacchan!” Izuku exclaimed at the sight of the blond. He wasn’t expecting to see Katsuki again _that_ soon.

The two boys stared at each other. Izuku’s mind went completely blank as he purely stared and sucked in every single detail of the boy in front of him. His stance, his stature, the papyrus scroll that he was holding, his orange camp T-shirt, his baggy jeans, his black-and-orange sneakers, his spiky blond hair, his nearly-flawless face that was starting to turn into a scowl—

Izuku noticed the scowl and couldn’t help but feel the jumpy sensation that rose to his chest again. Was he feeling nervous? Probably, but he wasn’t sure why. Was it because Kacchan’s glare was intimidating? Maybe, but why hadn’t he felt intimidated before? Was he supposed to act some way else? Was he making a weird face? Should he stand up? Should he speak? Should he—

The blond boy leaned against the door frame and made way for the other Athena campers. He glowered at Izuku, “The hell are ya looking at? You need me to say twice, Deku?”

“Oh, um.” Izuku looked down and hurried out behind the others, “S-sorry.”

Once he was out of the cabin, he glanced back as he brushed past someone else. Seeing only from the back view, it was a girl with a curvaceous figure and fawn-colored hair. The skinny jeans and high-heeled boots definitely brought out the seemingly attractive outline of her physique.

“Katsuki! Wait! I thought we’re supposed to start from cabin four!”

 _Cabin four?_ Izuku thought to himself. _Oh, right._ The first three cabins were vacant now unless veteran campers from those cabins came and stayed. He had nearly forgotten that.

The moment the girl spoke, Izuku knew it was Camie. He wasn’t that familiar with the new senior counselor of the Aphrodite Cabin. There was an incident a few months ago that made him think he had interacted with her outside of camp, but it turned out to be a trick played by the Mist. In the end, it was a vicious monster trying to disguise itself as someone he knew but wasn’t familiar with. It was pretty common for stronger and smarter monsters using the Mist to fool demigods in order to get near them. Just a typical life of a demigod.

Katsuki responded to Camie nonchalantly, “Not gonna wait for slowpokes.” Izuku could see from the opened door and windows that Katsuki was walking around the cabin, observing details around each corner.

Camie made a twirl in the middle of the space, “It’s, like, totes neat and clean already. Let’s just give them five outta five for their neat job!”

“Shut up. Don’t give me orders.” Katsuki growled as he scribbled onto the inspection scroll.

The two of them exited the cabin together as they finished. Hands tucked in his pockets, Katsuki immediately turned away. Izuku thought he had seen the blond boy glancing over at his direction before turning away, but before he could question himself, the scowling boy had headed over to the next cabin in the row, which was cabin ten since cabin eight was unoccupied. 

Cabin eight was the cabin for Artemis, goddess of the moon and the hunt. Being one of the goddesses who swore upon eternal maidenhood, she had no demigod children and the cabin was usually just for honorary when it was empty, but there were times when the cabin was occupied by the Hunters of Artemis, a group of young girls who accompany the goddess herself to hunt off monsters. Izuku had met them a couple of times while the Hunters visited camp and occupied the cabin while the goddess was busy, being away for her personal godly business. Most of the Hunters weren’t very friendly to male campers, probably since joining the Hunt required the girls to swear off boys and reject love. Meeting them wasn’t really a happy experience as Izuku recalled nearly getting shot in the eye for accidentally getting too close to their cabin on their visit, even though his own cabin was inevitably right next door.

As Katsuki headed over to cabin ten, Camie stayed back and commented on what a neat job they had done. Izuku wasn’t sure how to respond, but Camie seemed like she was new to inspection, so she probably had no idea that the Athena cabin was just doing the same for every inspection.

"Oh. Thank you. It’s actually the same as always…”

Being a year-rounder, Camie became the cabin counselor a couple of months ago when the previous counselor stepped down during spring, as Izuku had heard. Usually inspections were only done during the summer since there were fewer year-rounders compared to summer campers. But it was a bit strange that they’re doing inspections even though the summer session hadn’t started, so Izuku asked, “I thought inspections should be starting next week?”

“Yeah! So psyched to become a counselor, y’ know? I asked Katsuki to lead me around for counselor chores and whatnot before the summer sessions. He’s being totes helpful.”

“You asked Kac-Katsuki?”

“Yup!” Camie looked over at where Katsuki was heading, “Yikes. I better head back when he inspects my cabin.” And then she ran off behind the boy.

The rest of the Athena cabin headed back to the cabin while Izuku stood there and watched Camie catching up with Katsuki and chatting along the way. It was mostly Camie talking, but Katsuki had actually responded to her quite a few times. Izuku couldn’t help but stare at the two. Katsuki didn’t look… Irritated? Angry? Annoyed? He wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but he could tell Katsuki seemed calmer and nicer than expected. It seemed a bit odd to Izuku, since Katsuki usually yapped at others when they tried to annoy him.

He stood there and watched until the pair came out of cabin ten and entered the next cabin.

So far the two acted as close as Katsuki would be with his usual closer friends. 

_It seemed like Kacchan had known Camie beforehand, at least before today,_ Izuku thought to himself. Camie was a year older than both of them, but he remembered her coming to camp a few years after they first arrived. He recalled seeing the girl having four camp beads on her camp necklace, of which each bead was given at the end of the summer after the camper survived the year. “ _Right now is her fifth year at camp, so she came here on my third year at the Athena cabin,_ ” he concluded according to his calculation. “ _But I haven’t seen her around Kacchan before today, not even last summer. And last summer… Last year we…_ ” He shook his head and tugged his bottom lip with a soft pinch. “ _So it must’ve been some time before or after last summer, but I’d barely seen her with Kacchan even before today. Does it mean it was between last summer and this summer?_ ” 

Izuku paused for a moment as something sparked in his whirling mind. “ _Wait. Come to think of it, the monster… the Empousa that disguised as Camie came to me after school during a regular school day. Empousai shouldn’t have abilities to read people’s minds or memories, so it might’ve actually seen Camie around the neighborhood before it came to me._ ” 

He slowly dissected the incident as he mumbled along, “ _Kacchan and I were always around each other at school, but we usually part ways after school. If Kacchan really got to know Camie between last summer and today, could it be Kacchan had actually met Camie after school during the semester, and the Empousa saw them?_ ” His eyes widened at the sudden thought. “ _It could be. The Empousa might’ve also seen Kacchan and I usually went to school together in the morning. The Empousa was alone, so it’s unlikely for it to go after two half-bloods at a time, but if Kacchan and Camie meet after school, the Empousa would see me alone, and that might’ve been why it made the move and came after me._ ”

After coming to a conclusion, Izuku was beyond confused. “ _So why had they… Why had they met up during school day? Was it by coincidence? But Kacchan won’t easily make friends with people meeting by coincidence. Perhaps a mission called from the camp? It’s more likely possible, but I was around them as well, so why… Why wasn’t I called as well? If it was actually a mission, then what mission was it, anyway? Or were there any missions at all?_ ”

The question of how, what, and why continued to swirl around the mind of the freckled boy, disturbing his regular mindset. His entire morning passed by while sitting on his bunk and thinking about the sudden and weird friendship between Katsuki and Camie. He stared at the blank page of the notebook on his lap, not sure whether he should add new content or not. He mindlessly flipped to the page that he wrote about Empousa and stared at his notes. Fortunately, they didn’t have to go through camp activities yet since the summer session hadn’t officially started, so it would be fine if he even sat there for the whole day.

A conch horn blew in the distance, signaling for lunch. Izuku hadn’t realized he had remained in the same state for hours. He stretched his limbs as he sighed and closed his notebook, storing it away with a dozen of others.

“Guys, it’s lunch time. Cabin six, file out!”

Lunch was as usual as ever. 

The routine ritual was the same for every meal. After burning offerings to the gods, Izuku managed to focus on his siblings’ conversations and the food on his plate to prevent himself from drifting off again. Food for lunch was different from breakfast, but everything was still healthy. Things were pretty relaxed at this moment, Izuku thought so as he listened to his half-sisters chatting about witnessing a specific daughter of Apollo poking a male camper in the eye with an earphone jack. He tried to imagine the pain, but immediately gave up after seeing someone at the Hermes table with a bandaged eye.

“Ouch,” one of his half-brothers snickered at the painful sight. “Was the victim the same guy again?”

“Bet he never learned his lesson,” one of his half-sisters snorted.

“Or maybe he just likes to annoy her?”

“Could be _she’s_ the one who likes to poke _him_ in the eyes, y’know.”

“Either way, he should be glad that he didn’t get shot in the eye by an arrow,” Izuku muttered after he swallowed a bite of barbecue. Just thinking of sharp objects and archery gave him flashbacks and nightmares.

Half of his table laughed at his response. A lot of them had actually witnessed Izuku’s unfortunate close encounter with the Hunters of Artemis.

“Glad that you didn’t get skewered back then, or we’ll be missing you,” one of them teased.

“Oh, shut up.”

After a small walk under the heating sun and the humid air, a building with mud walls and a rush roof stood before Izuku. A wreath of red poppies hung on the door, at which the number “15” stood above the door frame. He looked around him and took a deep breath before knocking on the door. After lunch, he had decided to confront the Hypnos campers for his dreaming problems since he figured it might be better to resolve them before summer session had started. The sooner, the better. He wasn’t sure if they could help with this condition since he had never heard about this situation before, but he couldn’t think of anyone else to seek help for, so it was better than nothing. Izuku knocked on the door twice, but there was no response. He twisted the doorknob and creaked the door open.

“Hello? Excuse me. Is anyone there?”

With Izuku’s movement, the sunlight had created a crack of light on the cabin floor. From the crack of the door, a hearth on the far end of the wall came into sight. Above the mantel, a branch of a poplar tree was dripping white liquid into a collection of tin bowls. There wasn’t any fire burning in the fireplace as it was in the middle of a summer day, but the Hypnos campers had somehow managed to keep the place surprisingly cool, and Izuku could feel cool air leaking out from the opened door along with the smell of fresh laundry. Soft violin music was playing in the background, which helped with the soft and cozy feeling when entering the cabin. 

Izuku widened the door gap and stepped in, bringing the door closed behind him. He had to be careful not to be brought to sleep by the atmosphere of the cozy warm cabin. Unlike the Ares cabin, which had landmines and random weapons surrounding the cabin, the Hypnos cabin was dangerous in its own way. Before he looked around, he observed the branch above the mantel. He had once asked a Hypnos camper about the branch when he did cabin inspection. The branch of a poplar tree dipped into the River Lethe was the symbol of Hypnos. The white liquid was from the River Lethe, the river of forgetfulness located in the Underworld. Even a single drop is critically dangerous and could make someone begin to forget about their own identity.

Izuku wondered whether it was possible for someone to only forget about a specific thing in their memory if the liquid was used correctly and specifically modified. _Was it even possible to do such modifications on such mythological objects? Traditional scientific ways are obviously out of the question, so perhaps by using some sort of magic? Hecate is the goddess of magic, so are the children of Hecate capable of performing such things? What kind of magic—_

He halted his mind before he could go further; he sighed and looked away from the dripping branch. He had to remind himself that he’s here for business, not for observation and fulfilling his curiosity. He looked around the cabin. There were plenty of beds lining up by the walls, and about four of them were occupied.

Izuku searched the faces of the sleeping campers and reached out to the head of the cabin. 

“What are you doing here?”

Someone grabbed Izuku’s arm before he could wake his target. He whirled around to find a slender tall man around his thirties staring down at him with a pair of very drowsy eyes. The stranger had unshaven stubble on his face and messy long hair that made him look like he had just woken up from a year-long sleep.

“I-I’m sorry, but I‘m just here to seek help. I have some… some problems with dreaming. I knocked but no one responded. I didn’t mean to barge in.”

The man cocked an eyebrow. “Dreaming problems?”

“Yes! It’s a bit complicated, but—”

Izuku explained about his problems with his dreams and how it’s bothering him and making him unable to focus when he’s awake.

“Hmm. Interesting. How about you let me help you with this? I’m more experienced than this lad over there.” The man pointed his thumb at the sleeping teen on one of the beds.

Izuku grew a bit wary about the offer. It’s impossible for this stranger to be a monster since the magical boundaries of the camp should keep those filthy beings away, but this person seemed to appear out of nowhere. He stepped back and asked, “Who are you? You said you’re more experienced, but I’ve never seen you before right now.”

“Who I am doesn’t really matter. Or do I look like one of those nasty monsters to you?”

Izuku stared at the person in front of him and considered his options. It seemed like this person here didn’t want him to wake the other Hypnos campers. He claimed that he had more experience compared to the others as well, so did he perhaps have powers that were similar to the abilities of the Hypnos campers? Was he one of the Hypnos campers? Or perhaps an elder demigod son of Hypnos? Izuku even considered the possibility of this person being a god, but… 

The younger boy took a deep breath. There’s no reason for him to back down on this offer. “I’m fine with you helping me, but first, tell me who you are before you help.”

The man sighed, “I’m Shouta Aizawa. Son of Hypnos.”

“Oh, so…” Izuku eyed Aizawa. So one of his guesses was right. This guy was an old half-blood after all. It wasn’t common for veteran half-bloods to visit, but it did happen once in a while. Even his former counselor came back from time to time when there were new buildings to be added at the camp. “Did you just come to camp? I haven’t seen you before right now. Not even during breakfast or lunch.”

It wasn’t Izuku’s fault to be wary about the person in front of him. After his encounter with the empousa a few months ago, he figured it would be safer to confront every single person that he wasn’t familiar with.

Aizawa scratched his head. “I slept through them. I arrived this morning, and I went to sleep right after. I slept all the way until you barged in.”

“So, um, you’re not a regular camper?”

“Well, apparently I’m old enough to survive in the outside world by myself.” Aizawa glanced at the other sleeping campers as he spoke, “I came to camp just to discuss something with my younger siblings here. I’ll be leaving right after we come up with a conclusion.”

Izuku was extremely curious about their issue, but he would seem too nosy if he asked further, so he dropped the subject and focused on his own problem.

“Okay, so you said you can help me?”

Aizawa sat him down on a chair.

“Close your eyes.”

Izuku looked at him nervously. “You’re not going to make me sleep for a whole day, are you?”

Aizawa cocked an eyebrow at him. “If that’s what you want me to do instead, be my guest.”

“Um, no. I’m just, you know, wondering.” Izuku let out a nervous laugh before he closed his eyes.

Izuku remembered his mind turning murky, like he was sinking into a lake, but the next moment, he was literally sitting in the middle of a lake.

The waves of the water below rocked his canoe. The weight of the paddle felt heavy in his hands, and the rhythmic sway under his feet was making him dizzy. The boiling sun was shining above his head, making him sweat through his T-shirt. His shirt was so wet from his sweat that it was sticking uncomfortably against his skin. The surface of the water reflected the blinding rays of the sun. It was so bright that he needed to blink more than usual. He couldn’t remember what he was doing. Before he could decide what he should do next, a loud thud shook his body. He managed to regain his balance before looking behind him to see what had hit his canoe.

“Kacchan…?”

The side of another canoe was touching the one he’s in, and the familiar blond was staring at him. Somehow, the other boy looked younger than he remembered.

“You’re in my way, Deku! You shouldn’t be stopping in the middle of the lake!”

Now Izuku remembered what he was doing. He’s canoeing at the canoe lake at camp. He wasn’t sure what canoeing had to do with training survival skills for demigods, but he figured it might have something to do with muscle training.

“S-sorry, Kacchan.”

He tried to paddle away, but he paddled towards the wrong direction. 

“Idiot! The hell are ya thinking?! You’re gonna get us turned over! Row the other way!” Katsuki thrusted his paddle at Izuku’s canoe and managed to push them apart. 

“S-sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

Katsuki clicked his tongue. “Nevermind. Let’s head over to the others.”

Izuku watched as Katsuki paddled away. Between the blinding reflections of the sunlight, he could see most Hermes campers were already lining up the canoes at the dock. It was about time to go to the next activity.

After a whole minute of watching, he finally set off towards the dock. He was sweating so much from moving the canoe that he felt like he was dehydrating, and the blazing sun, along with the baking temperature, did not help. Everywhere around him was so blinding that he wasn’t sure if he was heading towards the right direction. White sparks were forming in front of his eyes, but he couldn’t tell whether it was from the water or his eyes were doing tricks on him.

He was panting. His throat felt like sandpaper was scraping the surface of his airway. He tried to swallow down some saliva to rinse it down, but his mouth wasn’t hydrated enough to provide anything for his throat. More white sparks were floating in front of his eyes. He felt dizzy and tired. Then suddenly, there was nothing.

He felt like he was far away from everything else around him. There were faint shouts from the distance, and he felt his canoe being pushed from behind. He wanted to see what was behind him, but he couldn’t move.

A couple of minutes passed by, but it felt like hours. When his canoe came to a halt, movements began to swirl around him. He could sense he was being lifted and carried to somewhere else.

===

Izuku’s eyes tried to snap open the moment he came to his senses, but he couldn’t see a thing in front of him. Was he still dreaming?

He tried to open his eyes again and found himself blindfolded. Aizawa had somehow blindfolded him without him even noticing.

“Don’t open your eyes yet. Your mind isn’t steady right now. If you see something vastly different from what you dreamed, your brain probably wouldn’t be able to comprehend which one is the present. Stay still for a bit.”

He heard footsteps walking away from him, followed by the sound of someone rummaging through some stuff. 

“How long was I out?” Izuku asked.

“About an hour,” Aizawa’s voice came from a few feet away.

So he had slept for an hour in the Hypnos cabin, Izuku thought to himself. At least it wasn’t a whole day.

The footsteps returned and something was placed into Izuku’s hand. “Hold this. Focus on whatever is in your hand.”

Izuku held the object and tried to guess what he was holding. It’s kind of sphereacle, but not as round as a regular ball. The surface was smooth. He groped around the object until he found some sort of indent, along with some sort of stem.

“Is this… a fruit? An apple?”

“Great job, brain kid. Now, slowly open your eyes. Your mind isn’t steady yet.”

After his blindfold was removed, Izuku fluttered his eyes open. Sure enough, he was holding a big apple with beautiful red skin. It seemed to be a very fine apple that was specifically chosen from the market. Izuku couldn’t help but ask, “Is this supposed to be your… lunch?” 

“No. It’s for someone I babysit outside of camp,” Aizawa huffed. “Now, back to the topic.”

“Right. My dreams. Do they mean anything?”

The drowsy man made a big yawn before he went on, “From what I’ve seen, it seems like your mind is trying to look for something.”

“What is it looking for?” Izuku asked warily.

“I don’t know. It was the doing of your own mind, so only you should know the answer. If even you have no idea, then it might have started beyond your conscious.” Aizawa looked at the other sleeping campers beside them. “There must be something that you were searching for in your past. There was something that you wanted to look for so badly that it triggered this kind of response.”

Izuku was stunned. He always thought it was something caused by outer influence, like some sort of curse or some trick of the Mist, or even some sort of summon from a god. “So my mind is looking for an object? A person? Or is it something else?”

“It could be anything,” Aizawa replied.

Izuku gripped the bottom of his chin. Aizawa could see the boy’s mind was running fast.

“Why are the memories so sharp?” Izuku continued to ask. “It’s making it hard for me to focus during the day.”

“Judging from what I’ve seen, I think it started pretty subtle,” Aizawa said. “It was so subtle that it’s easy for you to overlook the signs in the first place.”

The son of Athena fell silent. This whole thing probably had started earlier than he thought.

“They seemed like a looped dream or memory,” Aizawa continued, “so the dream looped to the beginning and became sharper on the second round. It’s now on the fifth loop from what I’m seeing.”

“Fifth?!” 

“Yeah. It’s probably why it’s so pronounced,” Aizawa said, “but this is just my theory. It’s not necessarily the actual reason for why your dreams are sharper than usual.”

Izuku gripped his bottom lip as he worked through his thoughts. “ _So my mind is looking for something, and it could be anything: a person, an object, a place, an event, or anything else,_ ” he mumbled to himself. “ _I wonder what it is though, and why it’s looking for it. I started to notice it a few weeks ago, so it can be something that happened back then that triggered this response. I was still at school when it started for me, so was it something that happened before school that started this? Perhaps during winter break, or perhaps last summer?_ ”

Izuku’s gaze drifted to the dripping branch on the wall.

He had to admit that he was very tempted to reach out to the dripping liquid. He wished he could forget the weird things that were whirling around his mind and were making him distracted from what he should be doing.

“If I want to get rid of this problem completely, is using the Lethe possible? Like, just one drop while I focus on the memories from my dreams,” Izuku asked.

“No, the Lethe doesn’t work that way. You’ll forget who you are if you do so,” Aizawa said. “You might get everything wiped out.”

The younger boy was deep in thought after receiving his answer. The river of forgetfulness wasn’t going to be the easy solution, so he had to try to find whatever his mind wanted to find.

A firm pat on his shoulder interrupted him, making Izuku jolt from the sudden touch. 

“If you want, I can help you find whatever you’re looking for, but no guarantee,” Aizawa said in a bored tone. “If you found what you’re looking for while you sleep, your mind might trigger some sort of special response. I can try and sense the change while you dream.”

Izuku was surprised. “You can do that?”

“No guarantee, and it’ll take very long to do so,” Aizawa said. “I’ll have to watch every time you sleep, and you’ll have to go through every single memory until I can sense the change.”

 _That sounded like a painful amount of work to do,_ Izuku thought. He didn’t want to trouble Aizawa, so he turned down the offer. “It’s okay. I can try to find it by myself. You have someone to look after outside of camp, so I think it’s better for you to return as early as possible.” Izuku returned the apple. “I had bothered you enough. Thank you for finding the reason behind my dreams.”

Aizawa looked at him for a while and huffed. “Okay then. Good luck for finding whatever you’re trying to look for. You can pray to my father if you need to, but I’m not sure how he would help.” Aizawa scratched his chin before he went on. “But what I can tell you is this: the memory you had just dreamed of isn’t what you’re looking for. That’s as much as I can see.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Izuku stepped towards the door, making his footsteps as quiet as possible as to not wake the other Hypnos campers. “Thank you, Mr. Aizawa!” He whispered across the room.

Aizawa responded with a grunt and went back to sleep. Izuku watched as the man crawled into an empty bed and went into his slumber. He creaked the door open and quietly stepped out, embracing the blazing sun once again.

Izuku was still flipping through his notebooks when the conch horn sounded for dinner. He had never kept any diaries, so he figured he might be able to find some clues through his analysis notes, but he’d barely written down anything useful for this situation, nor had he directly written down events in his past. His notes were for analyzing information about different gods and monsters and demigods he had either encountered or heard of, so all he could do was try to recall the different circumstances at which he had written down the note entries.

It was a long and tiring investigation. There were various notes on a single note entry, and for a lot of them, he didn’t write down the notes at the same time. For trying to recall everything he could, he had to recall multiple events in one single entry; not to mention he had dyslexia as well. Every demigod had the problem of ADHD and dyslexia. Their natural battle reflex resulted in their ADHD, and the fact that they were Greek demigods made their brain hardwired for the Ancient Greek language, which made them having dyslexia while they tried to read anything other than Ancient Greek.

Izuku sighed and closed his notes. About four hours had passed since his encounter with Aizawa, but he wasn’t even halfway through all of them, and his dyslexia didn’t help. When he’s focused enough, he could read properly, but when he got tired and his mind started to drift off a bit, the words would start to float around.

He looked out the window to relieve his sore eyes and watched as the sun slowly sank behind the horizon. Idealistically and theoretically, he would find some sort of clue about what he’s trying to look for, but he didn’t even know _what_ he’s looking for, and why, so he didn't even know if there was any progress.

He stood up from his bed and stretched his limbs. The cabin was empty except for himself, so he went out of the cabin to find his siblings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Camie’s personality is just so typical-daughter-of-Aphrodite that I really need to put her into the story!  
> \- Btw since I put it as rated G, I tried to censor out Kacchan’s words, like turning F-words into Hecks or Hells lmao.  
> (Or maybe I should change the rating just so I can make Kacchan cuss? 🤔)  
> \- I hope Izuku's mumbling monologue isn't too troublesome to read... I want to mimic the way it's portrayed in the manga, so a lot of them were jumbled in one paragraph...


End file.
